The Color of Time and the Late Music of Olivier Messiaen (supported by a 2022–2023 sabbatical leave)
I am currently writing a music-theoretical book centering on how Messiaen shaped the passage of time through musical sound in his late music from 1959–92. Entitled The Color of Time and the Late Music of Olivier Messiaen, the book examines Messiaen’s temporal ideas and how they are expressed in his music. Emerging from his lifelong preoccupation with time and eternity as a Catholic composer-theologian, his approach to musical time is demonstrated particularly in music he composed between 1959–92. These works demonstrate how extensive Messiaen’s temporal aesthetic was through his assimilation of musical practices and thought derived from ancient India, Greece, and Japan, and relatively more current ones from Bali. The Color of Time also examines the pivotal influences of Igor Stravinsky (via The Rite of Spring) and Claude Debussy on Messiaen as a composer. Finally, the book will feature (among others), detailed analyses of “Gagaku” from Sept Haïkaï: Esquisses japonaises; Couleurs de la Cité céleste; and Chronochromie.
My book, Olivier Messiaen’s Opera, Saint François d’Assise was published on July 25, 2019.
Corrigenda, Olivier Messiaen’s Opera, Saint François d’Assise (August 1–2, 2019/October 7, 2020/May 31, 2021)
Page 189, 1st paragraph, lines 9–11, sentence should read (corrections in brackets): The skylark then departs from its song and [may remain] silent for a few seconds [during a short descending phase] before plummeting to the ground.
Page 239, 1st paragraph, line 3: sentence ending with the words “redemptive agent” is missing the following concluding note, which was inadvertently omitted: These observations are partially indebted to Kinderman, 242–43.
Page 255, Figure 8.4, Scene 8: La Mort et la Nouvelle Vie: Psalm 142, not Psalm 141 (typographical error)
Page 261: Mitleid, not Mittleid (typographical error)
Page 278: [Pitch-class inversion of a set;] n is an index number denoting the sum of two notes related by inversion (October 7, 2020)
Page 79, note 31: “Developed in the 1930s in Indonesia, this dance-drama revolves around Hanuman, the Monkey [God], [a] central character in the Hindu epic poem, the Ramayana.” (May 31, 2021)
Errata, Olivier Messiaen’s Opera, Saint François d’Assise (August 1–2, 2019
Page 216, Figure 7.2 (continued): Psalm 142, not Psalm 141 (production error)
Pages 230, 242, 255, Figures 8.1, 8.3, and 8.4, respectively (production errors not caught by me): spacing issues related to the listing of foreground pc centers and tonalities occurring in diagrams associated with scenes 3 (p. 230), 4–6 (p. 242), and 7–8 (p. 255).
Corrigendum, “A Creative Legacy: Messiaen as Teacher of Analysis,” College Music Symposium 40 (2000): 117–39. https://symposium.music.org/index.php/40/itemlist/user/900-vincentpbenitezjr. (July 12, 2022)
Hindu Rhythms, Paragraph 3, line 2: Hindu rhythm simhavikrîdita (“Leap of the Lion”), not (“Bond of the Lion”)